Kuzha

“Kumzha” is a training course for generals at the academy
of the General Headquarters in which they learn about sub-
ma rines. A boat of every design is lined up for them, in the
designated naval base. The boats shine with freshly painted
insides, at the end of a week’s industrial-scale tidy-up.
It’s quiet, the rats are gone and the officers are waiting
each in his section, in clean underwear and new slippers, all
with new haircuts, and the PBDs are hanging in the right
places, while the rest of the crew are led off to the navy club
to watch films.

A crowd of generals, chatting among themselves,
appears at the shaft-like opening of the hatch. The first of
them begins to lower himself inside. Instead of turning his
face to the railing, he’s descending with his backside to it. So
he’s crawling down while his elbows poke into things on the
way and this general gets stuck with his arms turned out.
“Hey, Vaska!” the generals standing above him are
having fun. “It’s not a tank, for fuck’s sake, you need to
use your brains here!” The ladder in the central area gently
slopes down and people are meant to go down “face forward”.
Shifting back and forth before the ladder, the general Vaska
turns (he’s already “learnt from previous experience”) and
climbs down it with his back turned to the ladder, making a
general’s stride at each step.

“Vaska!” the generals shout at him again; they’ve just
been explained, after “Vaska”, how to go down the ladder.
“It’s not a tank, for fuck’s sake, use your brain!”

The generals are given a guide but, once they’re inside
the boat, they still manage to get lost and crawl all over the
place.

“Excuse me… where is the exit?”

“Down the ladder and then straight on.”

“Thank you,” says the general, doing everything he’s
just been told but ending up in a dead-end, which is a deserted
storage hold.

“Hey!” emanates from there. “Comrades!”

In the first section, generals walk past the torpedoist’s
cabin. The last general lingers and hungrily looks at the PBD
in this cabin.

“What an interesting flask.”

“It’s a PBD – a portable breathing device, used for
complete isolation of your breathing organs in the event of
a fire from the harmful influence of the outside atmo sphere!”
rattles the officer.

“A-ah…” says the general. “Look at that…” And he
sees the officer’s sandals: they have holes that make a sort of
pattern: “Did you make the holes yourself?”

The torpedoist doesn’t understand at first, but then he
cottons on:

“The holes?... oh, that’s… no, they were issued like that.”
In the next group of passing generals, each general
looks with curiosity at the “flask” – all the generals have the
same thought. The last one lags and asks:

“Is that a flask?”

Quickly:

“It’s a portable breathing device!” This is spoken very
quickly and almost hysterically, so the general only half
catches it, but he nods understandingly, “A-ah…”, a glance
at the sandals:

“Did you make the holes yourself?”

Jokily and racing:

“That’s how they were issued!”

Before the next group, the torpedoist manages to wink
at the officer in charge of the next section: “What idiots, eh?!”

The third group comes in and the last general in the group
turns to the torpedoist:

“What an interesting flask.”

The torpedoist is overcome with a fit of laughter. But,
mouth trembling and bubbling, eyelids flickering, he tries to
contain himself; his eyes are bulging, strange sounds pour
out of him, this is, no doubt, a case of nerves. The general is
surprised and he looks closely at the torpedoist. The latter:
“It-it i-is a b-bre-eath-i-ing d-d-d-de-vice!”

“Watch it,” the general looks at the officer attentively,
dangers bells are ringing, but here his glance accidentally
falls onto the sandals, the general is animated again:
“Did you make the holes yourself?”

A ti-tita-an-ic effort is made to bring his face under
control (or he’d get it in the neck so he wouldn’t be able to
turn it), tears in his eyes:

“Th-th-at’s h-ho-ho-how they issue them!”

The general, with sympathy:

“You’ve got the hiccups?”

A quick nod, trying not to collapse.

Not everyone gets as far as the missile section, only
the most curious. The commander of the section, captain of the third rank Sova (fifteen years in this position), buttoned
up to the larynx (he has no neck from old age), explains to
the general that he has sixteen ballistic missiles under his
supervision.

The general with respect:

“I imagine the minister knows about you?” (The general
has only three missiles in his base, but there are sixteen here.)
“No, no!” says Sova. “Even the flag-officer can’t tell me
from other officers.”

Soon, Sova is fed up with the generals, they’ve tired
him out, and suddenly he bends in half when the next general
comes in.

“What’s the matter with you?” the general jumps to one
side.

“Cramps… fuck it… comrade general.”

“Careful!” fusses the general. “Have a seat!”

Everything comes naturally to Sova: the tears, the
wheezing… he grows into his role, he groans and twists
his face until they lead him out and carefully sit him down,
leaving him alone. When there’s nobody beside him anymore,
Sova sighs meekly, undoes his collar in one jerk and, leaning
against the wall, he rolls his eyes and says with feeling:
“What a load of wankers,” after which he falls asleep in a
split second.

At the same time in the central section one of the generals
from the infantry sees a contraption called “Chestnut”. He
says with a cavalier accent:

“What’s this?”

The first mate, his uniform pressed, with a tag on the
breast pocket, all rigid from tension:

“This is the ‘Chestnut’ – our military transmission
device.”

“Oh really? Interesting, and how does it work?”

“So, you see,“ the first mate, like a magician, clicks a
switch, “Eight!”

“This is eight!” croaks out of the “Chestnut”.

“There you have it,” says the first mate, bringing the
“Chestnut” back to the starting point, “you can talk to any
section.”

“Yes? Interesting,” the general lingers by the “Chestnut”.

“May I?”

“Certainly.”

The general turns it on and unexpectedly speaks timidly
with his old man’s thin, trembling voice:

“Ei-gh-t… ei-gh-t…”

“This is eight.”

“Can I talk to you?”

Silence. Then the voice of the eighth section commander:

“Well, talk… old chap… if you’ve got fuck all else to
do…”

“What’s happening?” mutters the general. Struck dumb,
he clumsily turns his head and looks around with wide eyes.
The first mate is confused and dreams of giving a good
bashing to the eight; but suppressing this wish for now, he
mumbles:

“You understand, comrade general… military trans-
mission… commanding words… in a word, he didn’t
understand you. You need to do it like this,” the first mate
sharply leans to the “Chestnut”, bares his teeth on the way as
if he is ready to bite, and roars:

“Ai-ght!!! Ai-ght!!!”

“This is eight!”

“Get closer to the “Chestnut”, eight!”

“Yes, Sir, I’m closer to the “Chestnut”. This is eight!”

“That’s how you do it, comrade general!”

The generals leave. It’s time for lunch, the sections relax and there’s laughter; the officers have come together in the
fourth for a meeting, everyone already knows – they’re teasing
the commander of the eighth: “He says to him: let me talk to
you, and this guy says well, talk, old chap… the first mate
almost keeled over and lost his guts. Get ready for anything
there’ll be a bucketful of blood, he’ll turn your balls inside out.”